Devastating. That’s the only way to describe the news that 17 of 18 whooping cranes painstakingly led by ultralight from Wisconsin were killed last weekend in the storms that spawned tornados across central Florida.

School children, bird lovers and others moved by the restoration of a species decimated by man followed the birds’ slow artificial migration daily and became emotionally invested in their success. I count myself among them.

This, the sixth human-led migration of the endangered cranes by a dedicated group called Operation Migration, was cursed by weather all along. It started from Necedah National Wildlife Refuge in central Wisconsin Oct. 5, the earliest departure date ever. But their luck ran out quickly.

Weather grounded them for the next eight days. Wind, fog and rain dogged them all along the way. It took 99 days to complete the 1,200-mile journey to Chassahowitzka National Wildlife Refuge on the Gulf Coast of Florida. The Jan. 12 arrival was by far the latest ever.

Larry Wargowsky is as close to the project as anyone. He is refuge manager at Necedah, where for six years whooping crane chicks have been trained to follow ultralights.

“It was a shock to everybody,” Wargowsky said when contacted on Monday at a meeting of U.S. Fish and Wildlife project managers in Indianapolis. He arrived there as the news broke. He had just come from a wrap-up meeting on this year’s migration in Lafayette, La., with key players in the Whooping Crane Eastern Partnership, an alliance of state, federal and private, nonprofit organizations involved in the recovery project.

I got to know Wargowsky during visits to Necedah to write about the whooping crane project. He is a calm, analytical man who doesn’t easily lose perspective.

“It’s a blow, but the project will move on,” he said. Those tornados also killed 20 people. “This is minor compared to that.”

With the devastating discovery Friday, it appeared all 18 birds had died in the enclosure that protects the new arrivals at night from predators. But a radio signal and then visual confirmation proved one crane labeled 15-06, for the 15th to hatch in the class of 2006, had escaped the pen and survived.

It has been a year mixed with elation and loss.

Two chicks from this year’s class came from eggs recovered from an abandoned nest in Necedah and hatched in captivity, the offspring of a pair from an earlier class. One developed a serious leg problem and had to be euthanized. The other was among those killed by the storm.

Word came in June that a pair of whooping cranes from the second migration in 2002 had hatched two chicks in the wild at Necedah, the first natural births from the cranes taught by man. They were called “the First Family.” In November, one of the two was found dead, the apparent victim of a predator.

The First Family survived the storms. Four chicks paired with adults trained in previous years successfully migrated and survived. In all, 64 whooping cranes are living as part of a new migrating flock, thanks to the project.

“Sixty-some birds in six years, that’s tremendous,” Wargowsky said.

The loss was a rare act of nature, he said, but reaffirms the basic reasoning that led to the whooping crane recovery project. The only natural flock of whooping cranes is a small remnant that winters along the Gulf of Mexico at Aransas National Wildlife Refuge in Texas.

“We kept talking about a storm or an oil spill in Aransas killing the only flock,” Wargowsky said. “This kind of thing could have happened. We need to have several different flocks, distinct populations.”

The ultralight-led migration will happen again in 2007, Wargowsky assures.

The number of chicks released to migrate with adults will be increased.

Cameras monitoring nesting sites in Necedah will be added to the toolbox to study whether whoopers are abandoning nests because of predators, inexperience or some other reason.

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